Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Life Vs. Facebook

I don't know about you, but I have over 500 friends. All I do is hike mountains, party, eat delicious meals, go on amazing vacations, visit my family, go to beautiful towns, have amazing times with my friends, enjoy the most awesome life with my boyfriend and live it all the way up. I am a wise guru with always something usually so intelligent, universal and deep that it's mind-blowing. I am perfectly mature and many times very angry at the whole of humanity. Sometimes I'm very funny or sometimes I'm just straight up interesting and cool. I sing, dance and make charming videos displaying all the fun and joy that I am always experiencing. People leave me loving and supportive comments, they tell me what a great person I am and how much they love me. I'm also a heartthrob, I get people hitting on me or telling me how much they adore me through messages. I'm just living the grand Facebook life.

Others may ALWAYS be bored or angry or tired, always going through some trouble, needing help, wanting attention, etc. Some are just always so excited about something in the future, others are just so hurt by the past. Some are just these thriving superstars who are the center of attention. Others are the funny jokesters, drama queens, millionaires, party-animals, hard workers, bodybuilders, sexy beasts, etc.

What is your Facebook saying about you?

Whatever it is, it shares one thing with real life... you can present yourself however you want... or should I say however you think you should.

It's cool in one way and sad in another in the sense that many of us portray an image of ourselves that is inconsistent with reality all because we are afraid of not being accepted if we show who we really are. In fact, we think it's smart to put on a show to catch our prey. The story we tell ourselves is that lying and pretending to be something we are not is okay, because that is who we really are deep down and eventually it will all become true.

Of course, that's not the point of this note though. The point is to make an attempt to expand the mind of the reader as always. To open your eyes in the direction of reality.

Facebook is a bunch of fragments of reality. It's the capturing of MOMENTS in life. Whether it's an event, a mood, a thought, a feeling, whatever. It's very tiny PIECES of symbols that are supposed to represent reality. Many times they're not really representing reality but our illusions or delusions about it.

People in this culture are dishonest enough with themselves without Facebook - give them Facebook and they will outpicture their delusions and illusions sooner than you can say cheese.

There are all these "cool people" with huge personalities and they're so cool and collected. Their lives are so under control and everything is just so magical and perfect. And there is also the other extreme of the deluded "always feeling shitty about life, bored and grumpy." As if either extreme was real.

Here I go: I don't buy your stories of ultimate happiness and I don't buy your stories of ultimate misery. That's not reality. In real life, no one is always happy and no one is always bored. They are both shows. In real life nobody is always at a party and nobody is always smiling. Just like in real life no one is always bored in their room and nobody is always sad and crying.

My hope is that this note can help you see that you are way more than a fixed idea. That you are way more than a persona or an image. That life is way more than Facebook and that all those magazine articles, TV shows and virtual information are incredibly fragmented.

I love when in an interview with Charlie Sheen he is confronted about having been abusive to one of the prostitutes he was sleeping with. He said something like "They don't know me, they're fools. They weren't there, they had no idea what really happened. I feel bad for a person who believes in the media."

This is not only true of people who believe the bad stuff they say about somebody via fragmented pieces of information, but also true about the great and amazing stuff they say about people. Trust me, I know this one for sure... without you knowing, that "amazing incredible human being" you just read about is an immature, self-centered and narcissistic asshole with no grip on reality. Truth is very scarce not only in the our daily social lives, but even more in the media. Don't believe everything you read - exaggerating, lying and sensationalizing are very easy to do. I know, I've done it many times, as have you, so you know.

The people that make me the most sad are the people who buy their own press. The more I notice the illusions the more turned off I get and the less impressed I am by superficial things and accomplishments. People with the greatest sense of fashion and the greatest sense of creating a perfect illusion are such turn-offs. I guess it's the ultimate booby prize of seeing through all of this stuff and maturing some. I've been a pro at selling myself as well, except it never worked too well because my honesty always blew things for me. I always give away my secrets and always end up confessing my lies. I guess nature just made me that way.

In fact, I want to tell you and encourage you to not believe any of the stuff you see on my Facebook. I may have meant something in the moment I wrote it, but once a few minutes have passed I might have changed my mind. Don't believe the story my pictures tell you, because for the most part they say very little about me. Don't buy this article, because I will probably have forgotten that I even wrote it by the time you ask me about it... it happens to me all the time.

Life is too big to cram it into Facebook... so is a personality, a relationship, a family, a soul, a body, a mind. The amount of truth to be found in Facebook is very close to zero. And the same is true for show business. I learned the hard way... and it hurt a lot. Consider yourself warned... life is not what you think it is... it's way more.

PS - By the way... In reality I have less than 10 friends, I have hiked very little, I don't party much at all, the food I eat is usually good, but I usually have to cook it myself. My vacations are not always amazing, I don't really have all that many amazing times, my life is plain, my relationship with my boyfriend has highs and lows, I am far from being a wise guru, I am definitely not perfectly mature (haha), I like to pretend like I'm angry to be cool, but I'm not really that angry, I'm a sensitive cry-baby, people don't always show their love in a nice way to me that much, in fact... that's not even close to true, and I'm just living an ordinary, simple life. Like you are - no matter how much you try to cover it up.

About Me

My name is Gabriel Weiner, and I have always been very sensitive. In the Summer of 2007 I had a really powerful awakening experience that kept me seeing (and saying) "Everything is a gift!" over and over again.
I am the author of a spiritual poetry book titled "An Enlightened Lunatic In Verse And Prose"
I love to teach, sing, write and be of service.